Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Wednesday March 05, 2014 @09:59AM
from the thanks-to-officials-flipping-out dept.

v3rgEz writes "After the Snowden revelations, President Obama promised greater transparency on how the federal government collects and uses data on its citizens, including a three-leg 'privacy tour' to discuss the balance between security and privacy. Well, the first leg of the tour is up and — surprise, surprise — it's not much of a conversation, with official dodging questions or, in one case, simply walking out of the conference."
There's a video of the workshop at MIT, and the article says not all of it was spent watching politicians be politicians: "The review, led by White House counselor John Podesta ... is not confined to intelligence gathering but is meant also to examine how private entities collect and use mass quantities of personal information, such as health records and Internet browsing habits. On the latter subject, the conversation was robust. Experts from places like MIT, Harvard, Nielsen, and Koa Labs traded pros and cons, and proposed high-tech compromises that could allow people to contribute personal information to big data pools anonymously. "

An Anonymous reader also wrote in that "Outgoing National Security Agency boss General Keith Alexander says reporters lack the ability to properly analyze the NSA's broad surveillance powers and that forthcoming responses to the spying revelations may include 'media leaks legislation.' 'I think we are going to make headway over the next few weeks on media leaks. I am an optimist. I think if we make the right steps on the media leaks legislation, then cyber legislation will be a lot easier,' Alexander said."

Do not fall for the propaganda that the civil war was about slavery. Read up about it and you will find the north had slaves also. In fact slavery was already phasing out in all locations due to economic reasons, the invention of the cotton gin being a big one. The real reason the civil war was fought was to stop the southern states from leaving the union. It was the first big power grab by the federal government. After that point we were no longer a collection of states that ruled themselves but worked together in union. Instead we became one country which is ruled by people who have no knowledge or interest in the local conditions of any area.

The war was about secession, but secession was about slavery. If the South had not feared the abolition of slavery, it would not have seceded. After the war started, slavery was mostly a political and diplomatic issue, quite successfully used as most Englishmen did not want to support slavery (unlike the North, which had quite a few people with no problems with it).

The moment the political class concerned itself more with the accumulation of,power and money for a few, rather than say running the country in a balanced manner for the greater good of all its citizens. Media leaks mean Informed Citizens, which may threaten corrupt power slightly more than if the citizens were left in the dark.

THe Bullshit is how the Media already pushes government propaganda. And flat out careless if they report anything remotely truthful.

Yes, but this threat wasn't aimed at the mainstream reporters who already toe the government line and report the official propaganda. It's aimed at outliers like Glenn Greenwald who actually tell the truth to power.

The press started working for the government. Not sure when, but the media merged with the government at least during the Iraq invasion. They were all instrumental in starting the war. [worldpublicopinion.org] Once it got going, they fired [theguardian.com] anyone [blogspot.com.br] who dared question whether the war was a good idea.

The white house press corp pretty clearly works for the white house. They take the propaganda verbatim and publish it.

I think that mindset explains why the government thinks media leak legislation is appropriate. They see their employees as misbehaving. For that matter, the media masters are probably accepting it in exchange for goodies. "Tell you what, Obama, we'll accept more muzzling of our reporters. That will go for these online news source up and comers double, right? And you won't have a problem with Rupert Murdoch/whoever taking a complete monopoly over all news, right? He's promised us new mansions."

The specific legislation to which Alexander referred was unclear. Angela Canterbury, the policy director for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group, said she was unaware of any such bill. Neither was Steve Aftergood, an intelligence policy analyst at the Federation of American Scientists.

The specific legislation to which Alexander referred was unclear. Angela Canterbury, the policy director for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group, said she was unaware of any such bill. Neither was Steve Aftergood, an intelligence policy analyst at the Federation of American Scientists.

Well, duh!

The laws were passed and signed into law by the secret FISA Congress and the secret FISA POTUS, naturally!

I'm sure the secret FISA SCOTUS has already reviewed these laws and found them reasonable & necessary.

The Secret FISA VISA.

It's everywhere you want to spy!!

I wonder how long it will take for attacks on the NSA's and their contractors' workers by the public to start?

The legislation against leakers already states they can't use their reason for leaking the information in their defense, either at trial or at sentencing. Of course this used to not be a big deal as leakers were almost never prosecuted, but something changed a little over 5 years ago and now leakers are going to jail left and right.

Bullshit, people re-electing retards who become engrossed with their power in congress leads us to these things. Congress does two things, it either never reacts or then it overreacts. That's what happened here and because the American public has been complacent with a two party system you get idiots like Feinbitch and her bunch of retarded cronies voting for legislation that makes these things happen. The 1% don't control elections, sure they can buy air time but it's up to the voter to learn about the

Bullshit, people re-electing retards who become engrossed with their power in congress leads us to these things.

Not necessarily; for example, in the last election my district voted in a "Tea Party" candidate, whose entire campaign was based around the concept that he was "fed up" with the status quo in DC. So, he got himself into office, handed his auctioneering company over to a friend... and proceeded to become part of the exact same status quo he campaigned against. Like, the very first fucking day.

I think the problem isn't that we're "re-electing retards;" I think the problem is that anyone who isn't already a wealthy oligarch doesn't stand a chance of so much as getting on the ballot, let alone gaining enough support to actually win an election.

Until we de-rig the election process to allow candidates from demographics other than "filthy fucking rich" to actually stand a chance, nothing will change. At least, not for the better.

"They were right to detain and hassle (journalists)". I'll side with a journalist, even yellow scumbuckets, over people deliberately building tools of tyrrany which, history shows, will inevitably be abused in the service of dictatorship.

Since when has the military or the immense national security titan given a fuck about respecting the Constitution? Who exactly do you think is going to stop them? The Congress that doesn't even really want to know what's going on and happily puts a rubber stamp on any legislation with "national security" written on it? The spineless Supreme Court that also rubber-stamps everything and has no means of enforcing their weak-ass rulings anyway?

Media Leaks aren't well liked by people doing dirty, underhanded things. In the case of the Military they never like the press publishing anything that shows er well maybe their soldiers wiping out a village of innocent civilians or in this case when the Government is caught spying on everybody, leveraging secret courts for permission while not disclosing their full intent and omitting or outright lying to congressional oversight about what they did. Sure the press can be an "annoyance" to those who would continue to subvert our liberties in the name of preserving them. General Alexander has demonstrated that he's an idiot with a Star Trek fetish [youtube.com] and because his clandestine world is now mostly in the open, he's crying foul? Sorry I'm of the mind that General Alexander needs to be put in the stocks in the Washington Mall for three days and I want the rotten tomato concession.

I recently had a thought that might help - organize election-day festivals near polling places, something interesting to do to tempt the politically disillusioned and apathetic to come out and enjoy some good music and food. And since they're right next door anyway, encourage them to go vote for *any* third party candidates. Over half the country doesn't vote in most elections, if we can get them organized to "Vote Out the Sock Puppets" we could sweep the election, and maybe, just maybe, start things movi

"and proposed high-tech compromises that could allow people to contribute personal information to big data pools anonymously." -- and why, pray tell, would I willing give all my personal data "anonymously" to some massive database run by a corporation (likely with government oversight) that almost certainly ties my data to "unique identifiers" to ensure the integrity of their database?

Or am I just supposed to nod stupidly and send them all my records....?

Hey. Do you like FireFly? Wish it would continue? When would you watch it? When are you free to watch it?

This is the sort of information that you WANT to give the people making decisions about such things. They want to make something you want. You want them to stop fucking shit up and give you want you want. Communicating that sort of information is tricky.

First off, no, I don't think anyone in their right mind would simply hand over all their records and sign away all their privacy. That's bloody stupid. B

I find it interesting that I have to find out what is happening in this country, from the British newspapers. Where is the NYT or Washington Post, in reporting what is going on, and how we are losing our rights?

Andy writes, at The technical aspects of privacy [oreilly.com],
"The first of three public workshops kicked off a conversation with the federal government on data privacy in the US... hearing news all the time about new technical assaults on individual autonomy, I found the circumscribed scope of the conference disappointing. "

Alexander says that the media has not the ability for judgment of surveillance programs. "... ' journalists have no standing when it comes to national security issues. They don’t know how to weigh the fact of what they’re giving out and saying, is it in the nation’s interest to divulge this,' Alexander said."

Are the spooks (which most of the secuity appartus isn't anyway) the ONLY people who know how to judge government activity? I don't think so. What this clown probably means is more li

I think we are going to make headway over the next few weeks on media leaks. I am an optimist. I think if we make the right steps on the media leaks legislation, then cyber legislation will be a lot easier

Hey everyone! Welcome to our Privacy tour! Let's meet everyone in the room! Hi, what's your name? Eric? I think we have a picture of Eric's dong... yes, here it is! We got this while you were Yahoo web chatting. Who else is here? Dave? Do we... yes we have a picture of Dave's dong. This one wasn't too hard to get, since he uses Chat Roulette. Who else do we have here? Sam? Sam was quite a difficult one, but we finally got a picture of his dong after our agents set up a gay men playing with olive oil site... hey... where's everyone going?